Griffith v Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The appeal concerned a defamation action brought by the plaintiff, Griffith, against the defendant, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The dispute arose from a television program broadcast by the ABC which Griffith alleged contained defamatory imputations concerning him. The appeal was heard by the Court of Appeal of New South Wales.

The Court of Appeal was required to determine several legal issues. These included whether the defence of truth was available where the defamatory imputation was one of comment, and whether the primary judge had erred in finding this defence made out. Further, the court had to consider the availability of the defence of statutory qualified privilege, specifically whether the defence was defeated by malice and if the defendant was required to exclude malice to demonstrate the reasonableness of its conduct. Finally, the court examined whether the defence of comment was applicable when the imputation contained both comment and assertions of fact.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. While the specific reasoning of each judge is not detailed in the provided text, the outcome indicates that the court found no error in the primary judge's findings or in the application of the relevant defamation defences. The court upheld the ABC's defences, implying that the imputations were either true, protected by qualified privilege, or constituted fair comment, and that any malice did not defeat the privilege or that the conduct was otherwise reasonable.